Baylor’s Ken Starr problems started with George H.W. Bush

Had 41st President George H.W. Bush gone to his right rather than left, Bill Clinton would never have been investigated by Ken Starr and Baylor University would have named a different ex-judge to be its president.

Ken Starr’s celebrity once generated attention, and money, for Baylor and now all it is doing is generating horrible headlines.

Whomever Baylor University had selected to be its President and Chancellor in 2010 would likely be faced with the same scenario as the one who just was fired and quit. The difference is we would not have cared this much because few university presidents ever have the credentials such as Starr’s, and none of them stage a PR campaign against his employer the way he just did.

It painted the picture of a man whose primary concern was not to take responsibility but rather to spray the blame and deflect his role in this scandal.

It is clear now that the Board required all of its visible leaders to say nothing about this scandal until the Pepper Hamilton report was complete, which put men like Starr, Art Briles and athletic director Ian McCaw in a terrible position.

Starr’s response has been to fire back, but in doing so he did more harm to his reputation because there is no “winning PR strategy” that absolves leadership in such situations. If a PR professional tells you different they are lying in an effort to land a client to justify their salary.

The only way to handle this from a PR standpoint is counter to what a lawyer would say. The best you can do is to make the best of a bad day and hope for the sun rise.

Ken Starr’s best response is say the following: “We failed. I failed. I am sorry. We will fix this. While we cannot undo the damage that has been done to members of the Baylor family member whom we ignored, we can ensure that those in the future will be heard.”

In situations such as these there is no way to appease the masses; the media will grab four or five words, sound bites or whatever else necessary to convey that this is just another old white man with no clue about the damage of rape and sexual assault.

In many cases that picture is accurate. In others it fails miserably present the whole image.

And when there are potential six figure checks to be had, lawyers are going to lawyer and line up to care for “victims.”

After Baylor initially hired Ken Starr in 2010, he quickly became a beloved figure for the school, and was quite adept at fund raising. He knew the law, and he knew how to work a room.

What he did not know was how to handle a PR crisis because, it turns out, he was better suited to represent the GOP on the Supreme Court than he was to be represent Baylor University during a scandal.